ADAA: The Art Show - Andrea Higgins

Color-field or feminist portrait painting? These smart, post-minimal abstractions—optical and shimmery—controvert the historical notion that non-representational painting is without content.

Andrea Higgins painstakingly reproduces the warp and weft of fabric swatches to explore the cultural importance of textiles, their potential to convey associations, and the way that individuals use their apparel to present a particular image to the outside world.

In a solo presentation at The Art Show, organized by ADAA at the Park Avenue Armory, Higgins continues her President's Wives series with paintings of garments worn by Michelle Obama during her years in the White House, as well as canvases representing female protagonists from literature. The subjects of her study understand the cultural, social and political consequences of their dress and use those choices to assert influence and telegraph their values.